Monday, January 14, 2013

Rainbow Cupcakes

After being unemployed for longer than I ever have been and Mike carrying our family's financial stress solely on his shoulders, it was very apparent that we were going to have a pretty low-key Christmas last month. Not until Christmas eve were there finally presents under our tree, and thankfully our families really helped out in the gifting department. As disappointed as he and I were to not have a ton of gifts for her to try to sneak peaks at for weeks prior to Christmas, Quinn, our sweet girl, surprised us again with her easy going personality and desire to play with non-toy-related items. Quinn seemed excited about the toys she received, but quickly went back to her favorite toy, my iPad from over a year ago. It has been the main source of entertainment for Quinn since we have had it.

At first we were kind of worried. Can playing on the ipad really be that good for a two yearold? You hear stories of kids who play video games and turn into antisocial nerds when they grow up (haha, okay maybe that is a bit of an over exaggeration.) I just didn't want Q to turn into a Dungeons and Dragon's wizard girl and one day marry her dragon slaying boytoy via a virtual ceremony next to a magic bag of crystals or whatever.

ANYWAY. The ipad has been a really great tool for us to discover what Quinn is really into, which has been the greatest gift of all. Thanks to the trusty apps we have downloaded, Quinn has taken a keen interest in books, puzzles, matching games, and most of all, process-oriented activities. For instance, no matter what youtube video she starts off on, she somehow always navigates to a cooking tutorial or a how-to video. Whether it is someone from Japan showing her how to make erasers, or a little girl demonstrating how to use her new toy castle, Quinn will sit patiently and watch the video from start to finish. No matter what the length. It is really intriguing to watch her focus on every step leading up to a final result. So after she watched a "How to bake rainbow cupcakes" tutorial for the 193857493875th time, I decided it was time for us to make these badboys ourselves using the steps listed in her fav video.

It was so much fun! She seemed really excited as she realized she already knew which step came next in the process. Here are some photos...

First, Quinn mixed our cake box mixture in a large bowl with the water, eggs and cooking oil. Once blended together, we separated it into five separate bowls. I had Quinn put a few drops of food coloring into each bowl and stir it until the color magically appeared. "Mommy, these are magic soups!" Haha. We talked about how primary colors could make any color in the rainbow if they are mixed properly. Oh, and Thumper was there to help.

 Then, we took a scoop of each colored mixture and filled up the cupcake wrappers (use foil ones so the dye doesn't bleed through the wrapper,) layer by layer until they eventually looked like this. Next time I know to purchase two boxes of cake mix, because we started to run out of some of the batter...hmm...I wonder why...

 Oh, that's why. Because someone kept scooping spoon fulls of the batter into her mouth when I wasn't looking. Watch out for sneaky batter-eating-kids. You can spot them by the mass amounts of food coloring all over their faces and hands. BUSTED.

 Once they were done baking, they looked like this...

 Hold on, Quinn! Let them cool first!!! THEN we will put the frosting on.

 Ummm, I tried to take a picture of the final result, but she devoured hers too quickly. Oops! I guess they tasted good.

It was our first adventure truly baking something together and it was so much fun, especially because I know it really peaked her interest. We took a few extra ones over to Holt's house. Quinn said she wanted to give him a cupcake present. Hehe.

 I am going to see what baking videos she navigates to next and maybe we will try another baking project next week. Fun times!

1 comment:

MrsKatherineA said...

So cute!! This is MJ's dream baking activity!

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